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Like to see the newest additions to the CRRL collection? How about seeing them right on your phone? Now you can with the CRRL mobile app!

First, you need CRRL's mobile app installed on your phone or tablet. It is available for download from your phone's app store, or you can use your phone's Web browser to go to http://crrl.boopsie.com for the download and more information.

Once the CRRL mobile app is installed, open the app and select "What's New in the Catalog." You have a choice of All, Top Choices, DVDs, Teen and Children's Books. Select one of these, and you'll see what's new this week in the category. Click on a title to put it on hold, right from your phone. Easy!

You can get the same information by email by signing up for Wowbrary's weekly email newsletter.

Did you know that you can check out books on your phone? You can! And it's so easy.

First, you need CRRL's mobile app installed on your phone or tablet. It is available for download from your phone's app store, or you can use your phone's Web browser to go to http://crrl.boopsie.com for the download and more information.

Once the CRRL mobile app is installed, open the app, select 'Self Check-out,' then scan the library barcode or type it in and enter your barcode and PIN. It's as simple as that. The book you are holding in your hand is checked out to you.

It started as a a funny, little notion scrawled of a piece of scrap paper. "Mice have a culture all their own; Too small to integrate with other animals." Over the past decade, David Petersen's throwaway thought has emerged into a beautifully vivid adventure series that combines breathtaking action with gorgeous artwork. That series starts with Mouse Guard: Fall 1152.

The Mouse Guard are essentially wandering knights who serve a widespread kingdom. Mice have many natural predators and the guard has been established to protect citizens and keep the peace. But the kingdom is not simply threatened by snakes and owls. There are also enemies within.

The iPad mini is awesome. You can read on if you like, but just know that this is a tech purchase you probably will not regret. With its slim size, diminutive weight, and full-sized iPad technology, the iPad mini is a winner with few drawbacks.

Philosophically I approve more of Google’s open source Android than I do Apple’s closed-off iOS. I also am not a fan of iOS devices’ lack of centralized file storage and exploration. But really, there’s no denying that Apple knows how to build a tablet that overcomes these issues. The mini is 0.28 inches thick, 7.87 inches tall, 5.5 inches wide, and weighs only 0.68 pounds. The front of the mini is entirely glass with a diamond-cut edge that fits snuggly into an anodized aluminum unibody that comes in both slate and silver. The left and right bezel of the device have been narrowed significantly; at times this can make holding the device in portrait mode slightly awkward, but not as much as you might think thanks to its surprising lightness. Apple is king when it comes to rolling out devices that are a pleasure to hold and the mini is no exception; you will not believe how light and thin it really is until you hold one.

We know the majority of you weren't yet old enough to vote in this year's general election, but we wanted to give you a chance to be heard. So we came up with two candidates for our mock election and invited you to elect one as your president. Over 1,000 of you voted in the library and online!

The candidates were:

Edward Cullen from Twilight, "Because no one else has 111 years of experience!"

and the winner is ... Katniss Everdeen!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Scariest Book Contest for Teen Read Week - there were some great titles nominated.
The chosen nominations were: It, by Stephen King; Unwind, by Neal Shusterman; Death Note series, by Tsugumi Ohba; The Devouring, by Simon Holt; and Lord Loss, by Darren Shan.
The winning title is It, by Stephen King! Prize winners will be notified by email...so be on the lookout. All the information regarding the prizes will be in the email.

You can find information about upcoming teen programs on the website, and don't forget about our teen Facebook page!

Updated November 2013: After a year of living with much of this tech, I have some new insights that should help you decide if you want to settle for slightly older hardware at cheaper prices when shopping for the 2013 holiday season. I have also provided links to the updated versions of the devices that were listed in 2012 as alternatives to the standard Apple/Amazon/Google/B&N devices.

Here’s the hard truth: your password, well, it’s no good. Does it include a word found in the dictionary, a name, a date, or even numbers that look like letters (e=3, I-1, o=0, etc.)? Yup, no good. Do you use the same password for some or even all your websites? Tsk, tsk. The practice of password cracking has never been easier thanks to a number of landfall events for hackers, namely the release into the public of numerous huge password databases from hacked websites and the development of more advanced and specialized tools. What’s worse, the security of your password isn’t always wholly dependent on you but on the websites you use. I know it’s hard; you have trouble remembering your passwords, etc., and I’m sorry, but in today’s world those excuses just aren’t acceptable. Practicing good password hygiene isn’t a suggestion if you want to survive online, it is now a requirement. Please read on!

You wouldn’t know it by the state of things, but Adobe Reader isn’t the end-all, be-all of PDF. Standing for "Portable Document Format," PDF is a file format used to maintain the uniform appearance of a document no matter what type of hardware or software is being used to view it. You will see it used frequently for government documents such as IRS and court forms, job applications, ebooks and more since it looks the same everywhere. Adobe may have created the PDF format, but they made it a free-for-all file format in 2008, resulting in software for reading and creating PDFs that rival Adobe’s own.

You might be asking yourself ,“Why would I want to switch from Acrobat Reader?” Over the years Adobe Reader (once known as Acrobat Reader) has become a horribly bloated program that takes entirely too much space on your hard drive and, in my opinion, an unacceptable amount of RAM to use. It’s slow to load and slower to use. Furthermore, Adobe is constantly releasing updates for the program; it seems like every other time I turn on my Windows 7 computer there’s a notification for an Adobe Reader update, and I’m growing tired of it.